


Until your breathing stops (forever)

by THE_EVIL_CLIFFIE



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:25:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1648547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/THE_EVIL_CLIFFIE/pseuds/THE_EVIL_CLIFFIE
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Who kills an enemy? The weapon, or the hand who wields it?"</p>
<p>The Winter Soldier does not know his targets. The Winter Soldier cannot, even if they know him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until your breathing stops (forever)

Light. Light and pain. He groans. He remembers almost nothing from the last time this happened; what little he can recall is a dim haze of cracked ice and billowing steam. The pod door swings open. He’s weak from the ice. He falls forward. The floor, bare concrete pockmarked by years of use, rushes up to meet him. His metal arm moves almost of its own accord and the rest of his body responds, goes taut, torques from clenched fist to knee to outstretched foot. He lands with a snarl on his lips.

He looks up. A gaggle of white-coated technicians surround him. At the walls of the rooms and the single door stand a squad of guards. Twenty. They have automatic rifles - M16A, 5.56x45mm NATO – and dark body armour. It takes him three seconds to form an escape plan. Two more form in the next five seconds before a man – one point seven nine metres, approximately seventy-four kilograms, twenty-three methods of termination in the next five seconds, fifty five in eight - in a dark blue suit steps forward and says “Hail HYDRA.”

He freezes. The escape possibilities blank from his mind. He rises, flexing the fingers of his flesh-hand, his muscles awash with pins and needles from the cryostasis.

“You see, Ullanovich?” the man in the suit says. “My predecessor assured me the control phrase would work.”

“The cryostasis can weaken mental conditioning,” a woman – one point seven-five metres, approximately sixty-three kilograms, slightly built – replied. Her accent is Russian, in contrast to the man’s American burr. “I’d like to take a moment to ensure he’s properly prepared.”

The man pauses for a second, staring at him like he was a hunting dog. Some dim part of his consciousness tells him it’s not an inaccurate analogy.

“Do it.”

The woman crosses to the apparatus in the corner of the room. It looks like a medieval torture device - like a throne made to inflict pain. She punches a few buttons on a keyboard that has been laid across a table. The machine whines as it comes to life.

The man gestures. “If you please.”

He steps over. Two technicians come forward to buckle him into the seat and offer up a mouthguard. He bites down on it as the seat tilts backwards and the arms swing forward to enclose his head. The woman punches another key.

The world whites out.

When he comes to, he has clarity. He knows exactly what he is. He breathes in, setting crystal daggers to stabbing at his lungs. The seat rotates upwards until he’s almost standing. He spits the mouthguard out.

“What is your name?” the man in the blue suit asks.

He says nothing. He doesn’t have one.

The man smirks at the scientist. She scowls.

“What are you?” she asks. He responds to the code-phrase, automatically, a reflex action.

“I am a soldier,” he says, not understanding the significance of the words, but knowing they are all that matters. He flexes his hands, one of warm scarred flesh and one of smooth cold steel. The restraints snap open. He steps down, feeling the tense, humming energy in his muscles.

“Who is your mission?” the man asks as two of the soldiers lay cases on the tables. They snap the cases open to reveal an array of small, concealable weapons. Larger cases stand on the floor.

He knows instantly, although he does not grasp the significance. Two names, faces, profiles, locations and potential avenues of assault. The knowledge is in his mind, burned deep into his consciousness like it had always been there. He answers the question.

“My mission is Howard and Maria Stark.” 


End file.
